Reanimating the Dead, Maybe
by ASBusinessMagnet
Summary: Christmas in July Portal Fic Exchange: Chell inexplicably dies while testing with GLaDOS, and the near-omnipotent A.I. has to do something about it. See inside for full prompt.


_Full prompt:_

_"I'll take up a new hobby. Raising the dead, perhaps." In a Portal 2 AU where Chell dies during a test, GLaDOS quickly finds herself lonely and decides to actually try to bring the test subject back to life. Whether this goes a voodoo zombie route, Frankenstein monster root, cyborg, or some other way (even not working), is completely up to the writer. ChellDOS feelings are neither preferred nor not allowed; it is also up to the writer's discretion. No actual smut, though, please._

* * *

"This next test involves turrets. They're pale spherical things full of bullets. Oh, wait, that's you in a few seconds. Good luck." GLaDOS said to Chell as she entered the next test.

But that was a complete lie, and both GLaDOS and Chell knew it. When it came to test subjects, that one was almost unkillable.

Almost.

But if she survived and dethroned the great artificial intelligence again, GLaDOS didn't think she could take it.

Chell walked to the first narrow hallway. What presumably was a turret was stationed at the end of it, and shot Chell. She immediately backed up, and tried to think about it.

Sure, in this beginning room portals were able to be placed everywhere, but in the hallway, all walls, thr ceiling and floor were black.

Except...

Chell took another leap to the hallway, and at the end of it, she noticed an exit to the right and a white wall to the left. As the turret found her again, she backed away and figured out what to do.

She at first shot a blue portal somewhere in the original room, then entered the hallway again to shoot an orange portal, but missed.

However, as she went closer, only pain made her notice that the turret was making Chell into Swiss cheese of blood.

As the turret shot further, Chell fell onto the ground, dropping the portal gun, and everything for her got black.

* * *

GLaDOS couldn't believe what her cameras just recorded.

The lunatic that got her killed once finally died herself. No one would ever be a threat to the glory of Aperture Science.

However, the joy was quickly replaced with remorse.

As the engineers tried out everything to make her behave, the final and working security measure was an euphoric reaction to testing built into her body. In other words, testing was her drugs. She needed to test. All the time. Lack of testing was something unquestioned.

And lack of test subjects was even more terrible.

GLaDOS, using panels, picked Chell's fresh body up and threw it into various machinery. She simply _was _reviving Chell. For the glory of science.

_Aperture Science._

Too bad robots can't wear sunglasses._ (And as such the influx of fanart with ATLAS/P-body/GLaDOS/Wheatley wearing one-lensed sunglasses begins.)_

* * *

Chell finally woke up and looked around. She wanted to ask, to begin with, where was she, but, because of muteness, couldn't do that.

"Your vital organs had to be replaced with manufactured versions, but you should be as okay as a human can be."

Excuse me, what?

"You were killed, so I revived you. Simple as that."

Chell suddenly felt an influx of questions and emotions because of this simple statement. Why would _she_ need to revive her? What would happen now, now that Chell got stuck inside Aperture for an eternity? Would she have to wait until the Earth melted?

But then, she felt an injection and fell asleep.

* * *

"This is where you failed. Do not fail me again, or before your next revival I'll be sure to make you weigh a few more pounds. Let's say... twice your current weight."

Chell rose from the relaxation vault and looked around. The chamber looked identical to the one where she died, except with this glass bed with no privacy.

_So the great all-knowing A.I. is keeping me around for eternity._ Chell made this specific note and looked at the test again. She was not repeating the same mistake.

Show up, miss, hide, wait out. Show up, miss-

Oh wait. An orange portal was placed after all.

Chell then shot the blue portal and walked through. But then she noticed there was another turret behind this one, and as she picked the turret that originally killed her up, the other turret shot her, and she slowly backed away as she felt the dying feeling again.

* * *

"You have failed this ten times in a row. For the glory of Aperture, your birth and adoptive parents and your 99th percentile weight. Solve it at least this time."

Chell had roughly memorized what the chamber looked this time. Sure, constant deaths slightly shook her memory to nonexistence, but at least this time Chell got through the chamber if not dead, then at least somewhat wounded.

As the blood stains started drying on the beautiful elevator glass, Chell waddled into the next test chamber -

- only to fall into a pit of deadly goo.

"Well, I'll have to fix this too."

GLaDOS used a robotic claw to pull out the body of Chell out of the goo, and started repeating the same procedure she already did, albeit with new challenges.

* * *

"Take eleven. Last time you fell into a pit of pure liquid toxic waste because you were fat and riddled with bullets. But mostly because you were fat."

Chell tried to rise from the bed so she could try and prove GLaDOS wrong again, but fell off the vault without beinf able to stand on her legs, and looked at her body. The nicely curved arms and legs that usually were there and let Test Subject No. 1 fly through twenty test chambers in our era and ten chambers now were replaced with fatter ones, and as she got up, she thought that she was re-learning to walk again.

"You should really stop eating that much cake. In fact, I replaced the cake at the end of the test with a nice salad."

_No. She must have messed with my body while I was dead._

As Chell finally got up, she noticed that she couldn't really walk as fast as she usually did, and felt as the first turret got to her before she could do anything, and shot more bullets to finish her off for the eleventh time.

* * *

"Take twelve. Here's an interesting fact: last time, it actually took more bullets to kill you. So maybe I'm getting somewhere here."

But Chell had had it by this time. She simply sat on the vault, of course, with mucb trouble getting to stand up and reach a comfortable place to sit, and stared blankly into a camera.

"Giving up? I thought you never give up. In fact, it is written so in your file. _Subject abnormally stubborn. Never gives up. Rejected. Do not test._ Wait a minute. Do not test? I was interested in a wrong person all the time?"

GLaDOS opened the relaxation vault again.

"You win. Go to the relaxation vault and never overshadow Aperture again."

As Chell went to her sleep, or rather fell into her sleep, GLaDOS looked over her files again. There must be- ah! The cooperative testing initiative!

GLaDOS looked over the likely-to-never-wake-up test subject again, and started building two robots that will serve uer way better.

* * *

Chell woke up again, and looked around. _I thought she didn't want me? Why am I in Aperture again?_

But that was when she noticed the arcane contraption that was in the same room.

GLaDOS.

"Hello, for the last time. One billion years have passed since I last put you to sleep. That's right. The remnants of humanity rebuilt society, and then all fled to Mars. And there is precisely one barely alive sentient carbon-based organism on Earth."

Chell noticed a lift that opened its doors. She stepped into it, and the doors closed.

"And now I am making that number into zero. Goodbye. We had fun, but then your death and refusal stopped the fun."

Chell saw the layers of Aperture, almost never overgrown, and finally reached a layer of solid ground, which started to turn slightly red as the elevator rose to its destination -

- which was a lifeless desert with a way too big and too red sun. _(Wait a minute. Was this before or after Calliope walked outside and saw multiple shitty Statues of Liberty?)_

As the elevator doors opened, the hot air immediately got into the small room, and Chell only stared blankly as the heat got onto her and boiled every last liquid in her, causing her to fall and die again, but this time permanently.

But as she was dying, she found the energy in herself to write a message on the sandy ground of the round black bunker that somehow was there.

_Do not go in here for anything._

* * *

_Author's idiotisms: Do not expect any new stories or new chapters for my existing stories at least for September and October. I'm too busy translating Homestuck to Lithuanian. (Though, fan chapters are more than welcomed, as long as you don't kill the Business Magnet/interdimensionalPortaller off.)_


End file.
